Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Torin stood rooted to the floor, and I mirrored his stillness. The room felt unnaturally quiet after the shouting outside, the silence damn near suffocating. Overhead, the ceiling fan turned lazily, pushing warm air through the space we’d shared for seven months.

Seven months.

The number buried itself like a splinter in my heart, and my knuckles turned white as my grip tightened around the canvas handles of my duffel bag.

Torin's gaze dropped to the bag, tracking the tension in my hands, before rising back to my face. A sharp muscle jumped in his jaw, twitching against his skin. The purple bruise Reif had left along his cheekbone was darkening by the minute. For one stupid second, my brain locked onto the discoloration, and for one even stupider second, I wondered if it hurt.

The sudden burst of sympathy made me angry all over again, and I yanked the duffel off the mattress with a violent jerk. 

The strap caught on the wooden corner of the bed frame, and the entire bag tipped sideways, spilling a rolled-up black shirt onto the floor between us. Neither of us bent to pick it up, instead the shirt remained pooled where it landed. Torin stared down at the cotton as I fixed my eyes on the blank drywall, forcing myself to look at anything except him.

"Where are you going?" he finally asked, his voice low and gravelly.

The question scraped raw across my nerves, and a bitter laugh escaped my throat. Afterward, snapping my head around, I made myself actually look at him. To see the man who knew exactly how I took my coffee each morning. The man who knew I couldn't fall asleep unless my left foot hung off the edge of the mattress. At the man who could read the slight tilt of my shoulders and tell I was upset before I ever voiced a word. And then I looked at the man who apparently knew my brother was standing in the clubhouse every single day, yet chose to keep me completely in the dark.

My throat tightened. "Does it matter?" I whispered, my voice trembling.

His expression didn't change, remaining an unreadable mask as he muttered, "Marlowe," and took half a step closer.

I squeezed my eyes shut to block him out. His voice physically hurt. That perfectly calm, modulated voice. It was the exact same tone he’d used when Brian had shattered my life into a thousand jagged pieces. It was the same voice he’d used to soothe me when nightmares dragged me screaming out of sleep. It was the same voice he’d used every single time he’d convinced me I was completely safe in his arms.

My eyelids burned with unshed tears, and I forced them open wide before the moisture could spill over.

"Don't," I choked out, pointing a finger at his chest, the words coming out much quieter than I intended, breaking in the middle.

Torin went instantly silent, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Outside, a bike engine rumbled somewhere in the distance before fading toward the main road. Life kept moving out there, and it felt incredibly cruel. Everything outside this bedroom window was still turning on its axis, completely indifferent to my pain, as inside these four walls, something vital had ground to a sudden, permanent halt.

My gaze drifted toward the wooden dresser near the closet, at the silver framed picture that sat beside the ceramic lamp, catching the dim light. It was a snapshot from the Ravens summer barbecue. Rook had nearly set the industrial grill on fire that afternoon. Ginger had brandished a spatula and threatened homicide. Reif had spent half the afternoon leaning against a picnic table, laughing at everyone. In the center of the frame, Torin's tattooed arm was wrapped securely around my waist; my smile in the photo was huge, unrestrained, and genuinely happy.

I stared at the picture, then my mind shifted to Reif. Not the version of today, but the memory of him from that day, laughing, and standing not ten feet away from me, already knowing the truth..

The photograph blurred as my eyes filled with moisture, and snapping my head away, I looked down, my stomach twisting into a painful, nauseating knot. How many pictures were hanging on these walls? How many dinners had we eaten together? How many nights had we spent sitting around the clubhouse bar? How many casual conversations had happened while everyone in the room carried the exact same secret?

The walls suddenly felt like they were closing in, making the room too small to breathe, and grabbing the duffel by both straps, I marched forward.

Torin shifted his weight, stepping directly in front of the door. He didn't do it aggressively or with a threatening posture, he was just there, a solid wall of muscle blocking my only exit.

I drew to a stop, my boots skidding slightly on the floor. For a long second, neither of us spoke a word, and I braced myself, waiting for the anger to flare in his eyes. I waited for the cold, calculating control that the rest of the club always saw in him. Instead, I found something entirely different breaking through his composure; fear.

The emotion flickered across his eyes so quickly I almost missed it. Then it disappeared, buried instantly beneath years of hard-won discipline. But I had caught it, and because I;d seen the fear in him, I knew he’d recognized the absolute panic in mine.

My chest tightened until breathing became a chore. "Move," I commanded, projecting a strength I didn't feel.

He swallowed hard, the movement of his throat small and painfully tight. "Marlowe..." he pleaded, his voice cracking on the final syllable.

The desperation in his tone made something fracture deep inside me. It wasn't enough to make me stay. It wasn't nearly enough to fix what he’d broken, but it was enough to make me pause.

I pulled my eyes away from his face, looking toward the unmade bed. The sheets and blankets were still tangled from this morning. His side of the mattress was pushed up. My side was flattened. It was a life divided neatly down the middle, completely shared. Except now, every single memory we had built seemed to have a dark question mark attached to it. Every shared laugh. Every midnight kiss. Every whispered promise.

Did you already know? The thought arrived in my mind before I could stop it, poisoning everything it touched. I looked back up at him, my defenses crumbling, and the words slipped out of my mouth before I could filter them. "Did you ever plan to tell me?"

Silence met the question. It wasn't a silence born of hesitation or confusion. It was a heavy, suffocating silence, the distinct kind that answers a question completely before a person ever speaks a word, and something inside my chest sank.